African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1370 Water Agriculture
"I don't know where this Benito came from. He seems insignificant at first glance, but a closer look reveals that his so-called Italian fighting team has more than 10,000 members and is a political party."

In a corner of the Pichel Brewery, East African agent Lorant said to his colleague Xie Fuzhi.

Xie Fuzhi took a sip of beer, glanced at where Benito was speaking, and then said, "This Benito's father is a senior member of the Italian Labor Party. He was also a member of the Labor Party before."

"However, in terms of Benito's personal experience, he is more like a scoundrel. He has been like this since school. He likes to brag and act like a boss. He is also a first-rate eloquent and has many ideas. He is not only daring to speak, but also very capable of taking action. Otherwise, he would not have been able to build such a large team."

"In addition, this person's ideology advocates centralization and expansion. If the Italian Combat Group continues to develop, it is very likely to become a political force that cannot be ignored in Italy. It should be noted that this so-called Italian Combat Group was established less than two years ago."

Lorant frowned and listened to Benito's intelligence and said, "It sounds like he is a big shot, but I don't think his personality and work style are unsustainable, that is, he has not clashed with the current Italian government, otherwise he would have been finished long ago."

Regarding Lorant's evaluation, Xie Fuzhi said: "I think so too. From his speeches, we can see that he is not like a traditional politician, but more like an opera singer, with a loud voice and exaggerated movements. But it is precisely because of this that he is very inflammatory and can mobilize people's emotions."

Lorant said: "In this case, we don't need to pay too much attention to this kind of person."

It was purely coincidental that the East African intelligence personnel in Turin paid attention to Benito.

In Italy, the intelligence organization in Turin was mainly responsible for obtaining government intelligence information of the Kingdom of Italy and observing the activities of the Italian Labor Party in the local area.

Because of Benito's former membership in the Labour Party and his family background, the Turin intelligence service believed he might have some connection to the Italian Labour Party.

However, through a period of observation and intelligence collection, it was clear that Benito and the Italian Labor Party were not on the same page.

Even the organization he founded had nothing to do with the Italian Labor Party.

As for why the East African intelligence agencies previously suspected that his Italian combat team was involved with the Labour Party, this was related to the complex situation of the Labour Party organization in Europe.

There are many European Labour Parties, and even Labour Parties in various countries, that have parted ways or set up their own parties due to different political lines. However, these split or newly established organizations are still Labour Parties in essence, it’s just that their lines are not unified.

This is not surprising. Take the successful Russian Labor Party for example. Its leader Vladimir had a dispute over different lines with the previous European Labor Party.

Vladimir advocated the seizure of state power through violent means, thereby establishing a labor party regime state, and his approach has proven successful.

Therefore, Benito, who left the Labor Party and worked on his own, attracted the attention of the East African Intelligence Organization. After all, before contact, who knew whether Benito left to establish a new Labor Party organization because of disagreements with the original Italian Labor Party.

However, the result was "good", and this Benito was not a member of the Labour Party at all.

Otherwise, an organization like his, which engaged in political activities in places like Turin with great fanfare, would have long been listed as a target by the Italian Royal Government.

……

Rhine City.

end of 1920.

The European flu broke out and reached its peak across East Africa. The best proof of this is the city of Rhine, which has implemented a strict blockade and has also seen a large number of cases, making the already grim economic situation in East Africa this year even worse.

"Throughout 1920, the number of people infected nationwide has been impossible to count, but the good news is that the lethality of the virus has been greatly weakened. Currently, the number of deaths in our country due to European influenza is only over ."

"More than 100,000 of these cases were caused by the European flu in the middle of this year within two months. After July, the mortality rate of the European flu dropped significantly."

"At present, the cumulative number of infected people in the country may exceed 30 million, but for the total population of the empire, the infection rate is much lower than that of European countries."

The total population of East Africa is more than 160 million, and 30 million is equivalent to about 20% of the national population, and there are also unlucky people who are repeatedly infected.

This means that the current mortality rate of the epidemic in East Africa is less than 0.02%, which is mainly due to the relatively strict isolation policy and the ample "ammunition" of the East African governments.

The "ammunition" here mainly refers to medical supplies, especially some special medicines that greatly reduce the risk of death among infected people.

The specific efficacy of these special medicines is unknown, but it is indeed possible that they have improved the resistance of the East African people. The reason for this is that many of these special medicines are East African traditional Chinese medicines.

"And this time, the worst-hit countries in the European flu were India and the Far East Empire, which were densely populated countries with low levels of medical and health care."

“It is impossible to estimate the epidemic situation in this country, but it is obvious to the naked eye that the situation is very bad. This year, immigration applications from the Far East Empire have increased as a result.”

The European flu hit the most backward countries and regions hardest. As the power of the European flu weakened, industrial countries like East Africa at least had sufficient supplies to fight the epidemic.

Many backward countries and regions not only had to fight the European flu, but also had to endure famine, malnutrition, poor sanitary conditions, various natural disasters, and even war.

For example, in the Far Eastern Empire, although the European flu situation was very serious, its impact was not as greater as the warlord fighting in the country.

Today, East Africa looks at the Far Eastern Empire, just like the Far Eastern Empire looked at Africa in the previous life. In the previous life, African countries basically responded to the epidemic as "nothing happened", or compared with other disasters, the epidemic was not a big event at all.

"In other countries, such as Europe and the United States, the number of casualties is generally around hundreds of thousands. The situation in Russia is unclear. Apart from Russia, the country with the highest number of deaths is the United States. Last month, the number of deaths announced by the United States was about 600,000."

This data is very inflated. According to East Africa's estimates, the death toll in the United States should be over one million. However, this is also normal. The epidemic prevention departments of various countries will conceal some information when compiling statistics.

For example, the so-called 380,000 deaths in East Africa. The actual data should be more than this, but the error is not much. Even if it is doubled, it is only equivalent to the number of deaths announced by the United States. However, the population of East Africa is much larger than that of European and American countries.

Even Russia, which has the fourth largest population in the world, has tens of millions less population than East Africa.

Among the great powers, the country with the lowest number of deaths from the European flu is France, with around 200,000 deaths. However, France's population is relatively low among the great powers, and it is also the most suspected source of the epidemic.

If Clemenceau had not introduced the world's strictest epidemic control policy under pressure, it would definitely be a heavy blow to France at this moment.

In contrast, the epidemic in the UK can be said to be the most serious among the great powers, with more than 500,000 deaths, second only to the United States, but the UK's native population is only half of that of the United States.

After listening to the data from the Ministry of Health, Ernst said: "I hope that this epidemic will be completely over next year. However, we can no longer continue to fight the epidemic. Social production activities must continue, and the fifth five-year plan must also be officially launched." "In view of the epidemic situation this year and next year, we will first start projects in the agricultural field, and then decide on projects in the industrial and service fields in the middle of next year based on the development of the epidemic."

Agriculture is the least affected by the epidemic. After all, the population distribution in rural areas is relatively even and production activities are relatively fixed. Unlike cities, the population is concentrated and the population mobility is very frequent.

Thus, in 1921, the East African government's fifth five-year plan for the first time took agriculture as the basis for development.

This is significantly different from the previous five-year plan in East Africa. The previous five-year plan in East Africa can actually be described as a five-year industrial plan, in which giving priority to industrial development is the foundation.

The Fifth Five-Year Plan not only set the tertiary industry as a development priority for the first time, but also, due to the special reasons of the epidemic, agriculture was the first to be affected.

In the Fifth Five-Year Plan, the focus on agriculture is reflected in two directions: one is comprehensive land improvement, and the other is water-saving agriculture.

Then it was the agricultural department's turn to report to Ernst.

"Your Majesty, based on the current situation of agricultural development in East Africa, our Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Land and Resources, etc., through joint research and study, believe that during the fifth five-year plan period, the development of the agricultural sector should be further promoted in the direction of intensification."

"In 1920, the country's cultivated land area reached billion mu, the grain planting area ranked second in the world, and the cash crop planting area ranked first in the world."

"The empire's total agricultural output ranks first in the world, far exceeding that of other countries in the world."

"Through more than 20 years of development, the degree of agricultural mechanization in my country has been greatly improved. The number of agricultural tractors in the country alone has reached more than 800,000. In addition, the number of other grain or crop planting and harvesting machines has also increased significantly."

"The production of pesticides and fertilizers has also increased significantly, further improving the empire's agricultural output. Mechanization and the use of pesticides and fertilizers have enabled our country's grain output to surpass that of the United States and become the world's number one..."

This means that East Africa, with the world's second largest grain-growing area, grows more grain than the United States.

While the world agricultural crisis continues, East Africa has been able to achieve such remarkable results, which is actually inseparable from East Africa's national conditions.

Because it is important to be clear that due to population differences, East Africa has 60 million more mouths to feed than the United States, so East Africa must work hard on agriculture, especially food crop cultivation.

In addition, the degree of agricultural mechanization in East Africa has reached the world's first level. At the same time, the main food crop in East Africa is rice, while the main food crop in the United States is wheat.

Obviously, in general, rice yields are higher than wheat. In addition, as a tropical country, most of the land in East Africa can achieve two harvests a year. In fact, East Africa's grain crops can basically be harvested five times in two years.

Under such circumstances, it is inevitable that East Africa's grain production will exceed that of the United States. The two sides have similar arable land areas, and East Africa's climate is actually not bad, at least the light and heat conditions are better than those in the United States.

The significant disadvantages of East Africa and the United States in natural agricultural conditions can also be summarized into two points, namely soil and water resources.

Next, the agricultural department also mentioned these two points.

"Our country has made great achievements in the field of agriculture, but the problems in agricultural development are also prominent."

"First of all, it is the limitation of water resources that prevents our agricultural potential from being fully developed. Our country is essentially a country with relatively scarce water resources."

Although Africa is considered a relatively dry continent, judging from the data on paper, the total amount of water resources and per capita water resources in East Africa are actually not low.

Not to mention that East Africa has the world's second largest tropical rainforest, the total water resources of Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika) alone are close to 19 trillion cubic meters, second only to Lake Baikal and the Great Lakes of the United States.

With this one lake alone, East Africa's total water resources are greater than those of most countries in the world. For example, the Far Eastern Empire's total water resources are only more than 2 trillion cubic meters, which is less than the amount of water in one lake in East Africa.

Not to mention Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika), even the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) is enough to be compared with the national water resources of the Far Eastern Empire.

However, it is obvious that there is a big difference between this data and the actual situation. At least as far as East Africa is concerned, its available water resources are actually not as good as those of the Far Eastern Empire.

However, the world's top super lakes such as the Great Lakes, Lake Solon, Lake Malawi, etc. can only benefit the surrounding areas, but not the entire East Africa.

The Ministry of Agriculture pointed out: "my country has abundant freshwater resources, but the distribution is extremely uneven. In most of my country's agricultural production areas, whether it is rivers, lakes, or precipitation, they are relatively tight."

"In the past, although my country has built a number of water conservancy facilities, these water conservancy facilities are also limited by scale, technology, natural conditions and other factors, and cannot completely solve the problem of agricultural water shortage in some areas of my country."

"The situation is most serious in the south of our country. South of the Zambezi River, competition for water use between industry and agriculture is relatively acute and fierce. Similar problems also exist in other places, such as the central part of the East African Plateau and the northeastern part of the empire, where the population and agriculture are relatively dense or developed."

"This has made the water resources situation in a large number of high-quality grain-producing areas even more tense."

The high-quality grain-producing areas referred to by the Ministry of Agriculture here are mainly in terms of output and quality. The distribution of high-quality land in East Africa can be said to be distributed around the Congo rainforest. The farther away from the rainforest, the higher the nutrients in the soil, and the more balanced the soil acidity and alkalinity.

For example, in the western part of the Great Lakes region in East Africa, because the soil is acidic, rice is a more suitable food crop, and the pH value of the soil is related to precipitation.

For example, in the Far Eastern Empire, the area with acidic soil, that is, its southern part, has more rainfall, while the area with alkaline soil in the north has less rainfall.

The soil distribution in East Africa is also similar. The closer to the Congo rainforest, the more acidic the soil becomes, which makes it less suitable for food crop production.

The Great Lakes region has become a rice-growing base in East Africa because rice can adapt to slightly acidic soil.

Neutral soil has the highest fertilizer utilization rate. Neutral soil in East Africa is mainly distributed in the south and other regions, and is mainly located in the tropical savanna climate zone, where the overall precipitation is relatively low.

The Ministry of Agriculture mentioned: "Although we have built a large number of water conservancy facilities, which has greatly improved the efficiency of water resource utilization, in terms of specific circumstances, my country's agricultural use of freshwater resources is still rough."

"my country's precipitation is inherently unstable. During periods of abnormal climate, even with the help of water conservancy facilities such as reservoirs, the problem may not be solved."

"Therefore, it is necessary to promote water-saving agriculture in areas where water resources are seriously insufficient or the climate is relatively complex and changeable, so as to ensure that my country's agriculture can operate normally and stably in emergencies."

(End of this chapter)